


Don't Talk To Strangers

by hulklinging



Category: Runaways (Comics), Young Avengers
Genre: Alternate Universe, Conventions, Cosplay, F/F, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Pining, Social Media
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-16 08:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4618437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>unless they follow you on twitter.</p><p>Social Media AU. Cosplay, nerds, conventions, and a Scarlet Witch cosplayer in a speedo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meet Cute

**Author's Note:**

> I've never done this fake text thing sorry if they're awkward.

 

> **LucyInTheLASky** haha @billykaplan666 is this you?

Billy sees the notification, confused. Why is his friend tagging him in a photo while she's at a con on the other side of the country? He clicks the photo, and can't help but snort. The photo is of a very pleased, very pretty boy dressed in an... altered Scarlet Witch costume. Edited to be just her classic headdress and what looks like a red leather speedo. Plus cape and stilettos, of course.

He likes the photo for that. Then he looks at the guy standing next to the Witch.  
Oh. He is in a very, very good Captain Mar-vel costume, and he has the face to match. Billy swallows. Damn.

Even her text is smug. He frowns at the text, and then goes to look at some of Karolina's con photos.

There's not a lot, but there is one of her, her girlfriend, and Mar-vel. Xavin and Karolina look unreal as Utena and Anthy, so this gets a 'like' as well. It also has a link to the Mar-vel's own Instagram.

Billy knows this is a bad idea. He should be working on his own con prep for next weekend. he still has his and Tommy's costumes to finish, plus prints to cut, keychains to string, and he should really make a post with their location so people can find them.

He clicks the link.

Okay, this might be a problem. Not only was his cosplay awesome (commissioned from a **sister_grimm** , who he thinks is an old friend of Karolina's), but out of costume he's even prettier. Billy likes a few photos before he realizes how that might look, and then he just sticks to looking.

The guy's name is Teddy, and he's apparently spending the summer in Los Angeles with his cousin. He likes basketball and comic books and his art looks vaguely familiar...

hulklinging. That's familiar, too. Still trying to place the name, Billy scrolls down further and an art piece catches his eye.

Oh.

He clicks on the image, although he already knows what it is. It's fanart, although it doesn't look it at first- a small, glowing figure crawls across a dark expanse, filled with shattered mountains and in the background, a white tower, like a lone whole rook against the broken wasteland around it.

He had this as his computer background, for a while.

 

> **hulklinging** read @wiccanwriting's newest fic and couldn't help myself. Their writing is always so vivd, it's just asking to be drawn.

It's one of his better-known fics, an elaborate au that's gained its own following and is almost at 200 000 words. This was one of Billy's favorite scenes, early on, before everyone was really reading it. It was the first time anyone had ever drawn something for Billy.

He can't help himself. He reblogged it when he first saw it, too startled to say much more than a thank you. Now, almost a year later, he's one of the most popular writers in his respective fandoms. He'd almost stopped writing, before he saw this.

 

> **billykaplan666** sorry if this is weird. I actually wrote this fic, and I wanted you to know how much seeing this meant...

He gets a little sappy, but posts his comment before he can second guess himself. Then he shuts his computer. He has stuff to do, after all.

Tommy gets home just in time to whine about all the prep they have to do, as Billy drags him into artist alley prep hell. He really has no right to whine, since it's mostly Tommy's art they're selling. Tommy had been sketching for ever, something to keep his hands occupied. He drew Billy's favorite characters for Christmas, art of Kate for her birthday. Then he started watching some of her shows, started posting his art online. It took off. At their last con, Tommy had gotten a table, and had been completely flooded with interest and commissions. He hadn't brought enough stuff, had been so stressed stuck at the table all day, and had a rather shit time overall. Billy had offered his help for the next time, and here they are.

Billy had added a few things to their stock, some woven straps for the keychains, a few word art pieces that he felt bad putting on the table, even though Tommy assured him - with a punch in the arm, and a grin, 'cause it's Tommy - were 'pretty okay'. But he was really there as Tommy's support and sales person. Because unless Tommy is drawing, he isn't much one for sitting still.

Billy doesn't mind. He gets his con paid for, for one. And Tommy agreed to cosplay with him. An opportunity he really can't pass up.

His phone buzzes in the middle of him fitting a shirt on a very grumpy Tommy, so he ignores it until later, which ends up being almost two am, when they finally call it a day.

It's a text from Karolina.

Billy goes to bed smiling.


	2. Hurt/Comfort

He wakes up at a decent hour, and rewards himself by finishing editing and then posting the next chapter of one of his current projects. Then Tommy gets up, and he's banned from the computer, because there is fabric and keychains to cut and a brother to reign in, too. 

His phone buzzes halfway through the day, but it's not a text. It's an instagram post he's been tagged int.

> **hulklinging** Quick sketch I did at con- When 'a touch of space' updates, it doesn't matter where you are. @billykaplan666, great chapter.

He didn't reply to Billy's kind of embarrassing ramble. But he draws him more art, tags him in it. That's definitely something. He's also cosplaying Finn from Adventure Time, and he looks way too adorable.

The week doesn't rush by so much as it crashes towards the finish line that is the convention. But they make it, and it goes well. Tommy's stuff sells like crazy, people love their cosplays, and Billy even runs into a few people who know his writing, who actually want to stop and chat about his stories with him. He's riding on the high that gives him the whole con. 

When they finally get home, he gives himself a few minutes to collapse into bed and just dick around on the internet before he drags himself back up to make sure the prints they brought home with them, both Tommy's stuff and the purchases they'd made, didn't spend the next six months slowly getting crushed in a suitcase or something. 

He can pretend that he's just scrolling through his phone at random, but when he sees he has a new comment on one of his photos from Teddy, he clicks on it immediately.

> **hulklinging** This made me do a double-take. Are you really a twin? Or have you mastered the art of cloning?

Billy laughs, because it's the photo from the day they were Fred and George, and even he has a hard time telling them apart.

> **billykaplan666** @hulklinging I have a twin, yeah. Convenient for both cosplaying and getting out of bad dates.

Which is maybe a weird thing to say, but he is exhausted. It's the night after a con. Surely that buys him one or two odd comments, right?

Post-con, he doesn't have too much time to dwell on hot cosplayers who may or may not keep tweeting at him. He's gotta get ready for school, so even his fanfics go on hold, as he hurries to get himself ready for his second year of university. 

Billy definitely does not screenshot that. No way.

He takes a moment from a terrible first-week nonfiction assignment to check instagram (which he does more often now, often enough that Tommy's started to notice and of course tease him about it), and is met with a new sketch from Teddy. It's a teenage Kirk and Spock, holding hands in a library, and it's so cute. It's exactly what he needed, after a day like today. The caption is just 'For a friend.'

Friend. Billy might be jumping to conclusions, but he can't help but think that might be him.

When he has some free time that weekend, he throws down a quick oneshot, two students in a library, a meetcute that ends in holding hands. He posts it with 'for a friend' in the tags, and not soon after hulklinging has a new tweet.

He favorites the tweet with a smile.

Billy doesn't answer this one. Him and Teddy have started talking on skype, Billy's trying to muster enough courage to ask him if he wants to have a call, sometime. He doesn't want Teddy to feel uncomfortable.

Teddy beats him to asking, anyway. Billy hurriedly says yes, and makes sure to close his bedroom door, just in case Tommy comes home early.

When Teddy's camera starts working, Billy panics. He doesn't know what to say, it's the first time they've talked but they've also been talking for weeks. What's proper etiquette here? Billy has no idea.

"So, that new episode...?" he blurts out. Teddy's uncertain smile vanishes under a groan.

"Right? It's like no one even bothered to read the book!"

It's easy. It's the easiest thing in Billy's life. And he doesn't let himself doubt it, doesn't let his anxiety touch this. Teddy likes him. They're friends, real good friends. More than friends? Maybe. At least Billy's heart has taken to flip-flopping every time Teddy calls. He ignores it, though. This is too good to mess with. He's not doing anything to put this in jeopardy, including in any way acting on this crush.

Then Tommy disappears.

Well, first he gets broken up with. Or he breaks up with her. Billy doesn't get the whole story. All he knows is suddenly Tommy is single, and then he disappears. Billy panics. There's nothing he can do, the rational part of him knows this is just Tommy dealing with things in his own way, but that's all rational. Irrationally, he can't help but think it's somehow his fault. He spirals down into a headspace he hasn't struggled with this bad since high school. He drinks Tommy's alcohol out of spite, makes a few regrettable posts on various accounts, and then passes out in his living room.

He wakes up at noon, already having missed almost all of his classes. Judging by his pounding headache, he won't be making his afternoon classes either. He gets some water in him, narrowly avoids throwing up, and checks his phone.

16 messages. Five missed calls. A ton of notifications.

Shit. 

The first text is from Tommy.

There are nine texts from Karolina, three from Xavin, one from Kate, and one from an unknown number. He answers Karolina first, then Xavin and Kate. Then he opens the one from the unknown number.

 

Billy stares at the texts for a long time. He reads them once, twice, and then he gets up. He gets more water. He sits down at his computer, and he should do damage control, see what he posted that got everyone so worried, but instead he opens up the file of an original piece he's working on. He hasn't touched it in almost six months. But there's this buzzing under his skin, and drinking didn't make it go away, so maybe if he gets words out it will go away.

When his phone beeps that it's at 5% battery, he jumps. He's been writing for longer than he thought, and he still hasn't replied to Teddy.

He thinks back to meeting Karolina at his first convention. He was in his first year of high school, not out yet, and he bumped into an awkward giraffe of a girl in a falling apart Sailor Moon costume. She was near tears and he couldn't just leave her there. He offered the safety pins from his wannabe goth bag, and he sat with her and pinned Karolina back into her costume. Somewhere between Sailor Moon and Sunday morning, she became the first person he came out to, and vice versa. They would meet up a few times each year, she had a mom in LA and a dad in New York, so she started spending major holidays there, and the summers became their time. They even begged his parents into letting him go to California for one amazing summer, near the end of high school. They hit every con they could, went to Pride together, and they never fought over anything important. This amazing feat was mostly due to their Convention Rules. The rules were long and winding and mostly mundane, silly little things, like '78. Don't engage with anyone you meet in a bathroom before 8PM' and '32. Don't jaywalk in skirts' but there were important ones too. One of the first ones they came up with, after Billy kissed some guy at a rave named Jimmy and spent all year mooning over him. 'Rule 7. No long-distance dating.' It meant that any drama at a con would stay there, really, and it was the most often referred to rule, even now that the most of them have been forgotten.

Teddy spends most of his year on campus at some school on the West Coast of Canada. He is as far as he can be from Billy. Definitely against the rules. Also, Billy's a mess right now, needs to get back on track with his classes, needs to be there for Tommy and Kate. Needs to tell his stupid traitor heart to stop speeding up whenever Teddy contacts him.

For the moment, he lets himself reread Teddy's messages once more, and then turns back to his computer. Tomorrow, he'll return to the real world, and he'll deal with his missed classes and his wayward brother and also his best friend, who is probably going to be pissed at him for worrying her. But he gives himself a day to hide in his fantasy world. Just one day.


End file.
